ommon Scljool €b«cation. 



AN 



ADDRESS 



DELIVBRED BEFORB THE 



SCHOOL SOCIETY, PLYMOUTH, 



DECEMBER 12, 1842. 



BY REV. MERRILL RICHARDSON 



PASTOR OF THE CHURCH IN TBRRT8VII.LE. 



HARTFORD. 

PRINTED BY CASE, TIFFANY AND CO., PEARL STREET. 

1843. 



(!I linn o» School dc ir u c a t i o n . 



AN 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BETORE THB 



SCHOOL SOCIETY, PLYMOUTH, 



DECEMBER 12, 1842. 
BY REV. MERRILL RICHARDSON 

PASTOR OF THE CHURCH IN TERRYSVILLE. 



HARTFORD. 

PRINTED BV CASE, TIFFANY AND CO., PEARL STREET. 

1843. 



xlDDRESS 



Having recently given a report of the doings of your ex- 
amining Committee, and offered some remarks upon the impor- 
tance of doing more to elevate the standard of common school 
education, I invite your attention, at this time, to a more exten- 
ded consideration of the subject. Tiie interest manifested on 
tho part of several members of this society, encourages the be- 
lief that " onward!" will be hailed by you as the cheering watch- 
word in the enterprise of a thorough general education. Some 
will say this subject has been sufficiently discussed. Not so ! 
The discussion has scarcely commenced. More is said in one 
form and another, by those concerned, upon raising ruta-bagas, 
training cattle, and the like sciences, than upon the best methods 
of cultivating the minds of children. True, most men have more 
domestic animals than children ; but few, I believe, would con- 
sider the intrinsic value of improvement in the one case at all 
comparable to the importance of a right education in the other : 
yet facts will warrant the assertion, that in our farming communi- 
ties generally, a lectui'er will have more hearers, a newspaper 
more readers, treating upon agriculture than upon the manner 
of instructing and training the scholars of those communities. 
While at the same time the parents, who are laudably engaged 
in successfully managing their farms, are laboring for their chil- 
dren — to make their children prosperous and happy in the world. 
Until quite recently improvement in our schools has by no means 
kept pace with improvement in every thing else ; nor in but few 
places is the subject now receiving the attention it deserves. — 
Neither in convenience, healthfulness, or beauty of situation, do 
our school-houses at all compare with our buildings for feeding the 
poor, restoring the insane, or punishing criminals. In many 
towns, hundreds of scholars have sat year after year — are now 
sitting upon planks without backs, and raised so high that there is 



found no resting place for the soles of their feet. Probably more 
than two hundred thousand children in New-England are con- 
stantly sitting, six hours a day, upon seats in no way suitable for 
them, and during a great portion of the year, breathing an atmos- 
phere destructive to bodily health and mental vigor. Verily it is no 
wonder there is complaint of diseased spines and block heads. 
Put the thief, the forger, assassin and adulterer into palaces, and 
give them wholesome food and exercise if this be best ; but let 
not your children, who have committed no crime, be continued, 
at the expense of health, happiness and knowledge, in the old, 
uncomfortable confinements. 

But it is my present object to discuss the methods of giving 
instruction in some of the branches taught in our common 
Schools ; the improvements needed, and the way to effect them, 
— keeping in view the importance of a right and thorough educa- 
tion for all the scholars in our schools. 

In what I have to say upon the methods of teaching, I shall 
confine myself to a few studies common to all our district 
schools. And first — 

Grammar. Its object, say all authors correctly, is to teach 
the scholar to read, write, and speak the English language with 
propriety. Now, except in some schools in which recent im- 
provements have been made, how is it aimed to secure so desira- 
ble an object, as thus using the Eftglish language ? Reading 
being conducted as an exercise separate from a grammar lesson, 
how are scholars taught to write our language correctly 1 Nine 
names under the head of " Parts of Speech," are committed to 
memory, with their various qualities and uses, and then all words 
under some one of these names are to be joined together accord- 
ing to some thirty rules committed to memory also. This has 
been the method, and this only, by which the great mass of schol- 
ars in our country have been taught to write the English lan- 
guage. Has the object been gained ? Have those generally, 
who have studied grammar from two to ten terms, by this 
method alone, been able, upon leaving the district school, to write 
or speak our language correctly? I do not mean whether 
they have been perfect, capable of appreciating the diflTerent 
styles of writing, feeling the beauties of thought and diction, and 
able to express themselves in the happiest and most eloquent 
manner : such perfection is the work of years ; I know of no 
limit to perfection here. But have the great majority of scholars 



under the jmrsing system, or where parsing was the principal 
object, been quahfied to use common words correctly ? After 
completing their parsing at school, could they sit down, with con- 
fidence in their knowledge of grammar, to write a letter upon 
business, love or politics? Would their composition be free from 
the plainest blunders in the position of words, the use of capital 
letters, in orthography and punctuation ? No ! Four out of five 
who have parsed grammar will say — yes, nine out of ten will 
say, their study of grammar did them little or no good in this re- 
spect. Without ever looking into a grammar, or so much as 
ever hearing of a " relative," or a "(/isjunctive-conjunction," thou- 
sands, from talking some kind of a^rammar from childhood, are 
able to do business, to write letters which will bo understood, or 
get some one to write for them ; and the majority of those who 
have committed, an hundred times over, the definitions of a 
grammar, can do no more. It is painful to recall one's own ex- 
perience in parsing, and so is the thought that so many thousand 
children and youth are yawning every day over a long, dry, unin- 
telligible parsing lesson. From what I have seen, and from 
what I have been told by those who have experienced it, and 
from what, in the very nature of the case, must be, I know that 
grammar, as it has been generally studied, is the most repulsive 
and profitless exercise in our schools. A few teachers, who have 
the tact to interest scholars in any thing, will make some love 
parsing ; but in most case^ the object of grammar is not secured, 
and it never can be secured in this way. A lad is sent to a 
watchmaker to learn to make watches ; he is seated in a room 
to commit to memory the names of all the parts of a watch ; to 
define them all, and tell their use and application, and give a rule 
for the juxta-position of the several parts of a watch. His master 
spends one hour each day in hearing him r<3peat all this. The 
pupil is not required to make the several parts of a watch, nor to 
put them together or take them apart — only to learn their names 
and give some rule according to which they were arranged as 
they are. After thus parsing watchmaking for ten or fifteen 
months, the young man sets up the business of watchmaking for 
himself Will he succeed 'i Why not ? If it is philosophical 
to take the course generally taken to teach the scholar to write 
our language correctly, that is the method to make good watch- 
makers. But the apprentice, in addition to learning the names 
and rules connected with his business, is set to working at the 



thing — actually making watches. Now there is no way of 
teaching a scholar to write the English language but to set him 
about the thing — forming sentences by putting thoughts into 
words ! Of course if he is ready to enter upon the study of 
grammar he knows something of making letters and spelling 
words : let him now begin to put words together ; let him write 
since this is the lesson for him to learn. He may repeat every 
definition and rule of all the grammars ever published and never 
feel the least confidence that he can express his own thoughts 
correctly in writing ; scarcely dare, as is generally the case, to 
make the attempt. That most repulsive and frightful exercise — 
writing a composition, has been turned into the most attractive 
and profitable exercise of the school, by a correct method of 
teaching grammar. And the importance to every scholar of 
being able to write, with a good degree of correctness, his own 
language ! I need not demonstrate. The school that does not 
give the scholar this ability deplorably fails in one of its primary 
and most essential objects. Ask those who have been " educa- 
ted" in the district school, if this has been done for them, and the 
unhesitating answer will be. No ! " What is the use of studying 
grammar ?" is an inquiry which half the parents in New Eng- 
land have made ; and although many inquiries of this kind are 
owing to a limited knowledge of the subject, this one, I maintain, 
is to the point. And very few schoJcrs in the study would be 
able to give their fathers any intelligible answer. They do not 
see the use — no practical benefit whatever, in the repetition for 
the hundredth time, of those nine parts of speech. The writing 
part of grammar they know nothing about. They are never 
made to see that writing is the thing they are to do. I well 
know that many things should be studied for the discipline of the 
mind, while practically, they are of little value ; but I have nev- 
er seen reckoned among them " learning to write the English 
language with propriety" — and this too for New England schol- 
ars ! I doubt not the memory may be strengthened by commit- 
ting to it the contents of a grammar ; and so it would be if made 
to hold a particular name for every chip in the wood-yard. But 
on the whole the mind is injured by dwelling so long upon what, 
to it, is such a meaningless dovetailing of words. 

It may be said that most scholars will make fewer gross blun- 
ders for having " parsed grammar." Granted. Yet the great 
end of this most valuable study is not secured, and this begins to 
be seen. 



It would take too much time to give all the details of a correct 
method of teaching grammar in our common schools. I will 
suggest the outlines of a plan I have known successful. Let the 
class that wishes to commence this study take the recitation bench, 
and let the teacher tell them a short anecdote, or in some way- 
give them a few thoughts to write upon their slates in their own 
words. If it is the first time they have been called to express a 
thought in writing, they will hesitate, look at each other, laugh, 
begin, stop, and finally will write a few words in a very imperfect 
manner. Let what is written be corrected as to its orthography, 
capital letters, &c. The next day nearly every one in the class 
will put down the thoughts given him with little delay. Let this 
course be continued one, two, or three weeks, according to the 
capacity of the class ; and the teacher and scholar will be sur- 
prised at the facility and accuracy with which simple ideas will 
be expressed. Then let anecdotes of greater length be related, 
or read to the class ; and after the corrections upon the slate, 
require the scholar to copy them in a book made for the purpose ; 
this will improve him in chirography, and be better than to copy 
so much as is generally the practice after the hand-writing of 
others. Begin now to teach the class the several parts of speech 
— pointing them out in what they have written, making every 
thing perfectly simple. Give no lessons in the book for the first 
few weeks ; not till they have some clear conceptions of the ob- 
ject of the study and the benjefit they are to derive from the book. 
This, I am aware, looks like inverting the natural order of learn- 
ing language ; but where the language has been spoken for years, 
it will be found most happy. The writing should not be omitted 
for a single day ; the writing is the lesson ; to examine and cor- 
rect this, is the recitation in grammar. Occasionally throw the 
class upon their own resources for thoughts ; let them write des- 
criptions of their walks, of animals, of any thing within their ob- 
servation ; let them write letters to each other and to whom they 
please. Vary the exercise, and be careful never to let the class 
know that tHey are writing composition — to give them this idea 
in the outset would frighten them away from grammar. The 
first object is to have the scholar express thoughts in his own 
■words, and not to originate them. But during the latter part of 
the course the class may be left to write upon any subject they 
choose. It will be found a very easy matter to teach a class to 
parse — as far as parsing has any thing to do with the object of 
grammar. 



During the latter part of a course of grammatical instruction, 
the class should be made to point out the beauties of thought and 
expression in the best pieces of prose and poetry. Let them be 
made to see, and if possible, to feel the propriety of the various 
figures, the language and sentiment of the authors, and thus form 
a taste for reading, and acquire the abilit)^ to appreciate good wri- 
ting. They must be made to understand that grammar is some- 
thing more than a monotonous jargon of names. That parsing 
is not grammar — not, in its technical sense, any part of grammar ; 
or if so, only in the same sense as the rules of logic are a part of 
good reasoning — rules, without ever seeing which, many individ- 
uals have been the best logicians. Logic was not before good 
reasoning : grammar — the rules and definitions of the book called 
grammar, came after good writing. Parsing in most of our 
schools has been the whole study ; not a line of " writing the 
language correctly" has been required ! A person may be a per- 
fect grammarian and never, in the common meaning of the term, 
parse a word. A careful study of good authors, together with the 
practice of writing, is the best method of studying grammar. — 
This was the course Franklin took, and it is the course all have 
taken who have become correct writers. The same in principle 
should be adopted in all our schools. 

If education be any thing more than loading the memory with 
meaningless sounds, a large portion of^the time spent upon gram- 
mar is not spent in educating the mind. A scholar in a certain 
school (he could parse) was reading in a lifeless drawl, a most 
glowing, poetic description of the falls of Niagara ; not the least 
emotion was excited within him by the beauties and sublimities of 
the description. The visitor took the book, said a word to rouse 
the imagination of the scholar, and then read the piece himself — 
The boy's eye began to sparkle, his whole countenance kindled, 
and he showed decisive signs of life. He began to see that broad, 
magnificent sheet of water pouring into the deep abyss, and to 
be astounded by its roar. That boy learned more real grammar 
in a few minutes from that visitor than he had learned in his for- 
mer six month's study of it. That visitor did something by way 
of educating that scholar's mind. He did something to wake up 
his faculties, to enlarge his conceptions, to increase his happiness. 
That scholar will never read such descriptions again without 
seeing more and feeling more deeply. He received a little impulse . 
■which will last. And such impressions made upon the soul at 



<every exercise in the last steps of a course of grammatical 
instruction, while examining the varied styles, and seeing the 
varied beauties of different authors, will leave the pupil in the 
right path to intellectual and moral enjoyment. A mind thus edu- 
cated in the common branches taught in our schools will love 
books ; will prefer spending leisure hours in reading and reflec- 
tion, to listening to the shallow gabble at places of public resort. 
Its happiness for life will be increased an hundred fold. Some 
may ask — " What, in the name of money, is the use of such edu- 
cation for the scholars in our common schools ?" Not liking to 
speak lightly of money I cannot answer. You cannot place 
pounds Avoirdupois or pounds Sterling in one end of the scales, 
and a well educated mind in the other, and have any computable 
result. They are too different in their nature to be added together, 
or subtracted from each other. We cannot concede, what too 
many seem to suppose, that all which is desirable or profitable for 
our schools to do is to qualify the scholar to read with some 
degree of intelligibility, and know enough of figures not to be 
over-reached in transacting his pecuniary affairs. There is an 
awakening, and developing and strengthening of the mental fac- 
ulties which far transcends in value a little practical knowledge 
of this kind. Let us have the knowledge, a thousand fold more 
of real knowledge than we now secure ; and if possible let us have 
the educated mind. Since the scholars in our district schools 
have souls — a fact some tcaghers would do well to take for gran- 
ted, let them be kindled up, expanded, cultivated, blessed ! And 
a proper method of teaching will do much towards this object. — 
I have dwelt thus long upon this topic because of its importance, 
and because the deficiency in this branch of instruction is greater 
than in any other taught in our schools. 

Arithmetic is better taught than any other study in our schools 
generally. Scholars use slates and they cannot help learning 
something about figures. Black-boards and a piece of chalk 
begin to be found in the schools, and these are beyond price where 
the teacher knows how to use them. But let it be remembered 
that scholars are at work over their common arithmetics from five 
to ten terms. And with one lecture a day by a competent 
teacher two terms is enough, after the scholars are of suitable age 
to commence the study, to make them perfectly familiar with 
every principle in the book. If it were not so sad to contemplate 
the waste of time and intellect upon arithmetic it would be amu- 
2 



10 

sing to refer to the old, and still too common method of teaching 
this science : the weekl}^ parade of " reciting" arithmetic — that 
is, all the scholars with folded arms and with soldier-like stiffness, 
are heard to say the rules. To witness the conscious display of 
mathematical powers by the lad of sixteen, who could repeat the 
" Rule of Three" — a rule which throws perfect darkness over the 
very simplest principles of arithmetic ; then the exhibition of 
the long manuscripts at examination, in which the process of every 
sum in Adams' arithmetic was written out — copied for the most 
part from old manuscripts handed down by the preceding gen- 
eration, and referred to by the pupil in icorking out three fourths 
of the problems. This and the like of it has been, and is, the way 
scholars are made acquainted with the science of figures ! Fa- 
miliar and positive knowledge of the science is out of the ques- 
tion, unless the teacher gives a plain lecture upon the lesson for 
each day. I rarely ever knew a boy in our schools to have done 
with his arithmetic ! From ten to eighteen years old many have 
made this the principal study. Hence our scholars, though they 
receive nothing deserving the name of education in this branch, 
do learn something of figures. They can add, subtract, multiply 
and divide : but not one half of them can confidently point a sum 
in interest, or tell the reasons of the process, or the nature of the 
multiplier. I have often ascertained this fact both by the examin- 
ation of teachers and scholars. • 

Several valuable little treatises have been recently published 
upon the method of teaching geography, and somewhat exten- 
sively circulated ; and I will only say that with globes in our 
schools it may be expected that scholars will obtain some accu- 
rate knowledge of the earth. Grammar, arithmetic and geogra- 
phy, together with the still more important exercises of reading, 
spelling, writing and general questioning, are almost the only 
studies of the great mass of our district schools. }3ut why should 
they be ? These may be first, but why should they be all ? — 
Look at the time spent by most scholars in the school-house ; time 
enough, under the instruction of teachers in every way qualified 
to give instruction, to make most of the scholars acquainted with 
the elements of nearly all the branches of English science taught 
in our colleges. This is done where the subject of common school 
education has received its due attention. Why shall it not be 
done in our schools generally ? Every consideration growing out 
of the parent's duty to his children ; the nature of our civil and 



11 

religious institutions ; the nature of mind, its happiness and use- 
fulness, calls for improvement in our system of common educa- 
tion. Advancement in every thing else points the finger of shame 
at the stationary position of most of our district schools. " But 
the expense !" Why, it is capable of demonstration that, all things 
considered, we should be the richer. Parents or the State cannot 
expend money to so good advantage.* But little or no more 
money is needed to accomplish wonders here than is now expen- 
ded. Let the breath of life on this subject be breathed into the 
community ; let educated men in all the towns take an interest in 
the schools ; the parents — mothers and fathers, visit their schools 
and co-operate with the teacher, and much will be bettered. A 
desire on the part of ail parents to have their children thrive intel- 
lectually and morally, as strong as the desire to have the dairy in 
a good condition, and things go on prosperously in the kitchen 
and on the farm, would lead to doubling the value of the district 
school in one year. Not time ? " How much better is a mind — 
the mind of your child, than a beast?" " Your child's life will 
not consist in the abundance which he shall possess !" 

But more than this must be done to make our schools what 
they can and should be made. It is truer in the school-room than 
in the battle-field that success depends upon the General. Com- 
petent teachers for all our schools cannot be found ; they are not 
in existence. There is the raw material, but except in two or 
three States there are no establishments for manufacturing it for 
use ; and these can scarcely supply the immediate vicinities in 
which they are placed. Medicine, law and the gospel will, and 
perhaps should, take nearly all the men educated in our colleges. 
Our academies — those in which the instructors are skilled in the 
business, can do something to qualify persons for teaching : but in 
most of them the study of the languages and other things not the 
most needed for our common schools absorb the attention. 

The best judges have decided, and actual experience in many 
places has corroborated their decision, that our schools will never 
become what they should be without Seminaries for the specific 
purpose of training teachers. 

It is to the subject of a Teachers' Seminary as a remedy for 

♦ The Fifth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Edu- 
cation, contains abundant evidence of the truth of this statement. Mr. Mann, in 
his Report, has shown conclusively, by facts collected from business men, the supe- 
rior value of educated over uneducated labor. 



12 

the great evil of which all complain, viz : the incompetency of 
teachers, that I now wish to call your attention. But first, a word 
upon the evil itself. 

It is not pleasant to speak disparagingly of school teachers. — 
Their encouragements are small to expend time and money to 
qualify themselves to be skillful and thorough in this department 
of labor. Few in our country make school-teaching a constant 
business. Probably three fourths who engage in it, do so because, 
for the time being, it will prove more profitable or easier than 
other employments. The demand is not for high qualifications ; 
of course the supply will correspond to the demand. But the 
truth should be known. We use freedom in talking about every 
other class of citizens, and why not of school teachers ? If I will 
not have an unskillful hand deal medicine for my son, or entrust 
him to the ocean when I know the Captain of the vessel in which 
he sails is poorly fitted to manage it, or employ a clumsy cobbler 
to make his shoes, shall I commit the training of his mind, the 
happy development and strengthening of its powers, and to a 
great extent the moulding of his whole higher nature to a person 
— not only unqualified rightly to instruct him in some branches of 
science, but almost totally ignorant of every principle involved 
in educating mind ? 

The idea has been advanced, and let it be reiterated till it is 
seen and felt by every one who has entrusted to him a soul to ttain, 
that every reason will hold good for a specific training of teach- 
ers, for the purposes of giving instruction, which can be found for 
the specific training of persons for any other profession, and for 
any other department of business. So plain, reasonable, common 
sense a principle is disregarded no where else. What ! Expect 
a person to preach or plead efficiently who has taken no pains 
specially to fit himself for the pulpit or the bar ? Expect a young 
man to administer medicines skillfully who has only been doc- 
tored? What! The city belle employ a mere seamstress to 
make her saloon attire ? The man of taste to have the parlor of 
his splendid house finished by one who will do it because he can 
make more money during the winter in this way than by chop- 
ping wood 1 What ! Have your portrait painted by one who 
has only practiced upon barns and door-yard fences ? Or your 
dress coat cut by a man who never knew how to take a measure ? 
True, almost every one can do almost every thing — "after a sort,'' 
as Robinson Crusoe abundantly shows. I knew a minister who 



13 

wanted a wheel-barrow, and being in a hurry and choice of his 
funds made one himself. He called it a wheel-barrow ; his neigh- 
bors laughingly called it a wheel-barrow ; he actually made it 
serve his purpose of wheeling wood. But to my certain knowl- 
edge up to this time he has received no orders for wheel-barrows 
from any of his neighbors. Almost any person can teach a child 
some things ; almost any one can, with the book open, hear a 
scholar say his lesson ; most adults are stronger than children and 
can give them a sound drubbing by way of governing them : — 
and this can be, this is, called school keeping ! This is no carica- 
ture upon the thing called school keeping in more- than half of the 
fifteen thousand districts of New-England. The teachers never 
think of doing any thing more than hearing the scholar say the 
given quantity of lesson ; the teachers are incompetent to do any 
thing more ; they never had any thing more done for them. — 
From the child learning the alphabet to the youth beginning and 
ending the grammar, it is one continual question — " What's that?" 
No intelligible, explanatory answer to what is it 1 The scholar 
rarely ever learns what it is ; any more than Crusoe's parrot knew 
what Robinson Crusoe was. I do not charge the parrot with be- 
ing as ignorant and as thoughtless in all respects as though it had 
never entered "Poor Robin's" school. By no means. That 
parrot had thoughts — a kind of knowledge which the other parrots 
of Juan Fernandez that received no education did not have. I 
am not certain that it did riot really think it had learned, in the 
dialect of the Island, " to speak the English language with pro- 
priety" — (writing was not required.) Now where human intel- 
lect is the subject for discipline, I maintain that more enters into 
a right education than a repetition of sounds. Instruction is to 
be communicated. There should be light to dissipate darkness, 
knowledge to supply the place of ignorance ; all the various fac- 
ulties of the mind are to be roused, strengthened, developed, 
expanded. Every recitation should be attended with a short lec- 
ture familiarJy illustrating the subject of the lesson. The scholar 
should be m.ade to know the thing, and be made to know that he 
knows it ! The scholar in arithmetic is receiving no mathemat- 
ical training any farther than his mind clearly sees the reason of 
every step in the process. He may work out a problem in interest, 
or any number of problems, and if he never understands that he 
takes such portions of the given time in order to have his multi- 
plier money instead of months and days, he is learning nothing 



14 

to the purpose of educating his mind. He strikes his decimal 
point by guess unless he is rhade to see the nature of decimals. — 
And I tell no news to most teachers when I say, that, with most 
scholars, it is a hazardous step to point off their figures. Many a 
teacher has crimsoned, and the scholars grinned intelligence the 
entire breadth of their faces at the " Whys" of the visiting com- 
mittee. 

Illustrations drawn from every exercise in the school showing 
a deplorable deficiency in the skill and knowledge of those hired 
to " keep school" might be given. Who that takes the least glance 
at the mind of a child would think of leaving any distinct impres- 
sion of any one thing upon it, by making the child look at twenty- 
six difierent things — all of the same size, placed in a row, and 
many of them having a close resemblance to each other in the 
child's eye ? Yet — " What's that ?" rapidly asked twenty-six 
times over, four times a day, knife blade pointing at and half con- 
cealing the letter, is the method of teaching a child its letters. — 
" But it learns them." Yes ! but in a hundredth part of the time 
generally spent in teaching a child its alphabet, it would learn the 
names of any other twenty-six objects within its sight, by pointing 
it to four or five of them at once, and making it receive a distinct 
impression of each. It cannot help learning them ultimately, 
having them sounded in its ears so many thousand times. 

The truth is — from A in the alphabet with the child of three 
years old, to a " connecting adverb" with the youth of seventeen 
just " completing his education," it is one continual hearing the 
scholar say it ! No illustration ; no waking up of the mind ; no 
analysis of its faculties and adaptation of instruction to the pecul- 
iar endowments of nature ; no development of the thinking, rea- 
soning, imaginative and colloquial powers ; no deep and salutary 
impressions made by the beauties and sublimities of nature and 
language : no cultivation of taste ; no appreciation of sentiment ; 
no refinement in manners ; no right education of the soul, intellect, 
will or body, is secured in many of our district schools ! A little 
knowledge — much compared with nothing — almost nothing 
compared with what should be obtained in the same length of time, 
is acquired. More than this can hardly be expected, more than 
this will not be gained, till we allow it to be as important for a 
teacher to qualify himself to teach, as for a soldier to qualify him- 
self to fight, the shoe-maker to cobble, the lawyer to plead, the 
minister to preach. European nations understand this, and some 



15 

of them arc acting upon it. New- York understands this, and her 
schools demonstrate her wisdom and speak her praise. Massa- 
chusetts understands this, and her schools have increased in value 
an hundred fold during the last few years. Connecticut — she has 
a few men who understand this, and who have the will to act ; 
and we join in the request of the North American Review, " that 
Connecticut may not long remain behind her sister State in this 
great enterprise." 

The essential features of a Teacher's Seminary have been pub- 
lished, and it may be assumed that something is generally known 
about them. What such a Seminary is, its objects, and actual 
and probable results, may be seen stated in an article by Prof. 
Stowe, published in the Biblical Repository, for July, 1839 ; and 
republished in Boston and in the Connecticut Common School 
Journal. 

Such a Seminary is to stand in the same relation to our district 
schools as our Theological, Law, and Medical schools stand to the 
several professions of the country. Erected in some central posi- 
tion in the state, or in different parts of the state ; furnished with 
an appropriate library, and with the necessary apparatus for illus- 
trating the several branches of science ; under the care of instruc- 
tors in every way qualified to teach, and to teach others how to 
teach, and the best methods of teaching, and the best things to be 
taught ; having under its inspection some of the schools in its 
immediate vicinity, as models for those to examine, and in some 
cases to manage, who are preparing themselves for teachers ; — 
containing two or three distinct courses of instruction, longer or 
shorter, according to the age and acquirements of the scholars — 
the Teachers' Seminary is to send out every season well qualified 
instructors for the district schools. " Is the plan feasible ?" It 
has been successfully tried. 

" Can young persons of both sexes be found who will avail 
themselves of the advantages of such an institution?" In every 
town in the State one or more could be found ready at once to 
attend such' a school ; and the number would increase with the 
interest which will be excited by lectures and the general discus- 
sion of the subject. It will be made the best school for the study 
of all the English branches usually taught in schools ; and many 
will resort here for an English education who will afterwards 
engage in the business of teaching. Many young men and more 
young ladies would like to qualify themselves thoroughly for giv- 
ing instruction with the view of making this their profession. 



16 

" Can it be expected that those educated in such a school will 
continue in the business of teaching for any great length of time ?'' 
Some will, others will not ; but those who do not will do much 
by their influence to promote the interests of common schools 
wherever they may reside. But the objection will as really 
apply to all other seminaries, 

" Can young persons expect to receiv^e sufficient compensation 
for their services as teachers to repay them for the time and expense 
of attending the seminary ?'' It is a principle universally acted 
upon by wise men of readily paying more for a better article and 
for better services. The mechanic, the farmer, the merchant, pre- 
fer efficient persons in their employment with greater wages to 
inefficient persons with less wages. Any parish will pay more, and 
pay it more cheerfully, " for the right man" to preach for them, 
than for a man only second to him in ability. The skillful phy- 
sician and the able lawyer are amply compensated for the expense 
of more thorough qualifications. And many have said to their 
kitchen maids whom they liked — " only stay, the price I reckon 
not of." Now need I draw the inference from this principle acted 
upon in every department of labor ? Can it be that parents, and 
the guardians of children and youth will pay more for a good than 
a poor hand to make their wheel spokes, shoe their horses, plant 
their corn, keep their accounts, give them medicine, protect them 
in law suits, and even to wash their distjes and sweep their kitch- 
ens ; and yet prefer an unqualified person with low wages to a 
well qualified person with more wages to train their childrens' 
intellects and souls ? Most parents labor for their children ; the 
interest of their children stimulates them in all their toil, enters 
into all their plans, throws a cheerfulness over the entire length 
of earth's rugged path. Take from them their children, and they 
exclaim — " ye have taken away my gods, and what have I more ?" 
Many a parent, who has labored long and hard, yet happily, with 
the vision of his son's future enjoyment before his mind, has felt 
the pillars of earth give way ; has seen his green fields become 
seared ; the heavens over his head blackness ; home and life but 
emptiness, as the coffin lid closed forever upon that son. And 
cannot a cord of such strength, binding the parent to the child, be 
touched and made to vibrate by considerations relating to the 
intellectual, the moral, the eternal well-being of that child ? Will 
he pay a life of hard labor for the physical happiness of his off- 
spring, and but little to enlarge their capacities for enjoyment as 



17 

intelligent beings ? Will he harden his hands, and bring upon 
himself the burden of premature old age that they may_^ call so 
many acres of this earth's surface theirs, and yet grudge a little 
expense that their minds may be cultivated by a skillful hand ; 
their dispositions.moUificd and rendered agreeable ; their manners 
pleasing ; their trains of thought for life more pure and elevated ; 
their words sense, their demeanor appropriate, their lives happy, 
and greater their probabilities of a glorious immortality ? Can 
parents rise early and toil late to give their children more money ; 
and can no motives be brought to persuade them to expend a 
little more money to give their children more mind ? Any parent 
would deem it the sorest calamity, as it verily would be, if his 
child was an idiot ; or if his child, by some accident, should lose 
half his intellect, or any one mental faculty. If we had doctors 
of the mind as skillful as some doctors of the body ; nfien who 
could restore the sluggish activity, or wake to life a dormant fac- 
ulty of the mind, as well as give sight to the eye and recreate a 
lost nose, they would have abundant practice and abundant pay 1 
They would be speedily employed by many parents to operate 
upon children whose mental faculties have slept long and soundly 
(unless occasionally awakened through the integuments of the 
body) six months of the year in a school-house. But for the want 
of physicians who can make mind, or restore a lost faculty, we 
can have instructors who can develope, enlargOj and strengthen the 
mind, and the result is the ' same. God bestows upon all that 
measure of intellectual capacity which He deems best ; and the 
aim of every one should be to make the most of what he has. — 
If to lose a faculty, or be deprived of half the mind we have, be a 
calamity, it is equally a calamity to leave it uncultivated. The 
result is virtually the same in both cases. In a family of half a 
dozen children from the age of eight to twenty years is a set of 
the best English and American poets. " What a rich treasure of 
pleasure and profit !" But not a member of the family has intel- 
lect enough to. understand a word of them. " How calamitous ! 
How sad, how pitiable that, with the human form, they should 
want the human mind !" It is so ! And as truly so if, with human 
minds, yet for the want of a right education, those poems must 
forever remain sealed books to their eyes. What a calamity is 
blindness ! Yet as to seeing and enjoying the ten thousand beau- 
ties of God's creation, and the productions of genius, a mental 
ophthalmia is the life disease of thousands in consequence of igno- 



18 

rant bunglers having committed to them the delicate work of train- 
ing the mind. A room is' hung with beautiful paintings; the 
blind boy enters ; the father exclaims — " Oh 1 ray son, would that 
you could see !" 

Parents can be made to pay most cheerfully for the right edu- 
cation of their children. True they will employ, in many dis- 
tricts, the cheapest teachers ; but having tried so many at so many 
prices, they will as soon risk the quality of a cheap as a dear 
teacher. It is also true, sadly true, that in many districts they 
pay little regard to the qualifications of their teachers ; the money 
consideration being the only one. And in others stoutness and 
cheapness are the only qualities of the mental educator discussed 
in the school meeting. But changes have been, and still can be 
wrought in such districts. A single lecture in some places of this 
character has resulted in doubling the value of ihe school. Noth- 
ing comparatively has been done in a majority of school districts 
to enlist parents in the improvement of their schools. Not a 
lecturer, scarcely a paper upon the subject has found its way there. 
I know of no worthy enterprise which cannot be made successful 
by zeal, ability and perseverance. That this can be, I know ; that 
it may be speedily, we should labor. Already teachers who are 
known to be thoroughly qualified are in good demand, and they 
are well paid for their services. It must be so. Men will pay 
more for a good axe to chop their Wf od ; an improved stove to 
cook their victuals ; an easy wagon to ride in, an easy chair to si£ 
in ; a quicker churn for their butter, a swifter spindle for their 
thread ; and they will — it cannot be otherwise when once their 
attention is turned to the subject — pay a liule more for a better 
teacher to instruct and educate the minds of their children. 

" But who will erect the building and give the necessary funds?'' 
It is the appropriate work of the State. No legislative act would 
more directly benefit every family in the State, or do more for 
the prosperity and permanence of all our institutions, and the hap- 
piness of all our population. If such action cannot be obtained 
on the part of the legislature, the cost will not be so great that 
individual effort cannot meet it. Let there be consultation among 
those who desire such an institution ; a convention called it may 
be, and one or more individuals appointed lo lecture upon the sub- 
ject. In some such way the necessary funds might be secured. 

But let us.count other things than the cost, when we are con-, 
templating an enterprise which will directly benefit every inhab- 



19 

itant of the State. The time has been, and it is not centuries 
since, when, in the most enlightened countries, the improvement of 
mind — the mind of the great mass of the people was placed far 
below every other object ; rather it might be said the mental well 
being of the nation was entirely overlooked. The millions of 
subjects were counted only to ascertain the available physical 
forces of the nation for fighting enemies and raising grains. The 
muscular strength of the people was the boast and the value of the 
kingdom. Look into the history of all modern as well as ancient 
nations and, till quite recently, we hear nothing of the glory of 
well trained mind. Nothing of any attempts, upon a large scale 
by the rulers for the mental elevation and happiness of their sub- 
jects. No sympathy was awakened in behalf of ignorant and 
degraded mind. We do indeed hear of a Xerxes' tears at the 
thought — not that so much intellect and capacity of enjoyment 
was turned to so wretched a waste, but that so many millions of 
fantastically dressed fighters were so soon to be out of the world. 
The idea has been, and it is not yet out of Europe or America, 
that the mass of the human family were designed, and should be 
considered and treated only as a more skillful and valuable kind of 
animals. But a few years since and talent, educated mind where 
ever found, was esteemed less than the prowess of arms, and the 
honor of wealth or station. It was not allowed a place around 
the social board of the mailed cavalier, or the ignorant and sen- 
sual baron. It was not nourished by honors, or riches. It was 
oftener at work in the straitest circumstances of penury and hun- 
gei', in garrets and cellars and sometimes in dungeons. If it was 
valued, it was not because it was mind, but because it could be 
turned to account in giving a little variety to the pleasures of the 
rich. Men of past ages whom we deservedly call great, were 
not great in the eyes of their generation. Those were the great 
and the envied — living for a worthy object and possessed of all 
true blessedness, who owned the most acres, lived in the largest 
houses, were followed by the most servants, ate the richest viands, 
drank the most and the most costly wines. The history of the 
physical efforts and the physical pleasures of the world is essen- 
tially its whole history. Deeds of daring and feats of physical 
strength have been celebrated in romance, history and song. It 
was in 1705 that England thought Newton was made greater by 
being made Sir Isaac. And this was then her day of compara- 
tively intellectual renown. Later than this the literary men of 



20 

France complained of being excluded from the society of the 
great as of an inferior quahly of blood. A spectator who knew 
nothing of man's nature and destiny looking from a favorable 
position upon our world thus far, would consider that, with few 
exceptions, mankind were a very singular race of creatures, whose 
absorbing object was their physical happiness ; and that some 
individuals and some herds of them managed this admirably for 
themselves, though most fatally for others. But is it so that the 
millions of a'nation are never to be contemplated and treated as 
beings of mind as well as of muscular forces ? Is it unalterably 
and forever settled that a high degree of intellectual and moral 
cultivation, and enlarged capacities for mental enjoyments shall 
never be the portion of a people ? Is an iron hand of destiny 
upon the world that, as nations, we shall know no pleasures higher 
than those of sense and passion ? Glory in no higher aim than to 
possess monuments of physical power ; to be strong in war and 
in the sinews of war ? Must man almost universally in every 
nation live and die as a mere labor-doing machine, forever debar- 
red from intellectual pleasures? 

" Then is the pillared firnic-'ment i-ottenness !" 

But the prospect brightens of a better day, when man shall be 
esteemed, not less for what he is in himself than for the brute 
force that is in him. When a greatness and a sacredness shall be 
attached to him as the image of God ; ,his spiritual nature regar- 
ded as incomparably of more importance than money or money's 
worth of sensual pleasure and worldly fame. May this nation dare 
to be peculiar in this respect. And if we shall have fewer towering 
castles and palaces ; our rulers a less splendid equipage ; our par- 
ties of pleasure enlivened by less be dizened ladies of quality, we 
will neither be ashamed nor chagrined at the contempt of a Trol- 
lope, nor the insolence of a Fiddler. Let our innumerable green 
spots be the abodes of highly cultivated minds, and ours shall not 
be the disgrace of calculating upon the closest principles, and 
publishing to the world, the greatest amount of labor, which can 
be performed by the " producing class" upon the fewest ounces of 
food, and the fewest hours of sleep» 

Our country has been comparatively guiltless thus far in under- 
valuing the cultivation of the general mind. Not that we have 
a better, or as good a system of schools as can be found in Europe. 
But considering our youth and the circumstances of our early 
existence, the efforts for general education have been praisewor- 



21 

thy. And had improvement in our schools kept pace with im- 
provement in every thing else, the poorest would now be where 
the best are. But in the heat of our passion for wealth, our sys- 
tem of common schools has been left in most places to itself. — 
Did New-England now give the same proportion of attention to 
this subject which her fathers gave, every appeal for advancement 
would meet a ready response. And yet it is the universal theme 
that nothing will perfect and perpetuate our institutions but a 
thorough and a right general education. 

We should feel little complacency in contrasting ourselves with 
what the world has been. As it respects every noble and every 
valuable principle of life, we st;u'ted in advance of the most civil- 
ized nations. Our ancestors pretty generally believed that men, 
that all men, had souls, and that ignoi-ance for any one was a 
calamity and a curse. And if the great body of the people would 
keep themselves from it, a few men would not, on the plea of 
" nobler blood," aj)propriate all God's earth, and the people with 
it, to themselves, as had hitherto been the practice. So far their 
descendants have not been thus disposed of. But our system of 
common education must embrace more than giving the ability to 
read and a little instruction upon a few practical subjects. This 
is quite a secondary object of our higher schools of learning. To 
give strength and intensity to the mind is the primary thing in an 
education. To lead the pupil to think, to reason, to see into the 
principles of things, and to.begin to establish his character upon 
true principles of moral conduct should be thought of in all our 
schools. To some extent we must secure this kind of education ; 
our civil and religious life depend upon this. It is this which can 
give stability to our communities* True our schools have done 
something to secure this result. Probably in no community on 
the globe will quackery of all kinds flourish less than in New- 
England. Agitators of the " baser sort" for the most part go else- 
where to do their work. And yet there is so little thought — so 
little principle fixed by reflection in the mass of our communities, 
that strong 'reasons are not the things which move aud persuade. 
The demagogue understands this, and is ever acting upon it. — 
The man skilled in happily hitting a passion, or in giving direction 
to a prejudice, will carry his point right or wrong. How many 
educated men stand shivering with fear, when some new topics 
are to be discussed in their parishes, lest an excitement should be 
produced, for or against the new movement, that will shatter 



22 

church and society, if not houses and barns ! Who has not known 
nearly a whole township turned, or re-turned, to this or that party, 
under a well-aimed speech of an hour ? Now it is not the classi- 
cally learned only who should possess, in a good degree at least, 
those habits of thought and reason and deep reflection which 
make strong-minded and stable-minded men. The national mind 
should be of this character, "But the school-master is abroad." 
So he is, and we are thankful. But every other sort of man is 
abroad, and is likely to be in our country : the fanatic, the impos- 
ter, the cheat of every kind is abroad, and finds an ample field for 
his pranks. Let the able, the competent school-master be abroad 
in every district in the land, and we shall have some good ground 
upon which to rest our sanguine hopes of the future. 

Before concluding, permit me to say a word upon the intrinsic 
importance of highly cultivating the common mind. The duty 
and the absolute necessity is upon us to do this, for the safety of 
all we, as republicans, hold dear, depends upon its being done. But 
cultivate the mind because it is mind. Why till that spot of earth ? 
*' Because it is fertile and will produce a crop." Why educate 
that child ? I answer because it is a child, and will be a man, and 
may be a seraph ! Father, mother, what is that lovely little 
object you call yours — dearer to you than all your houses and 
acres and goods ? Its bright eye, its smiling face, its sweet voice 
— how precious in your sight ! What is it ? Is it a little thing 
which will grow into a labor-doing, money-making machine ? — 
Do you look upon it as a curiously constructed form that will 
make a fine appearance well dressed, and be quite satisfied well 
fed? That is to appear for a while for the purposes of eating, 
drinking and earning wages of some sort or other, and then pass 
away ? And does educating it, or what you call educating it, 
mean simply giving it a little instruction that it may the better 
accomplish such purposes 1 More — infinitely more than all this 
goes to the making and training of that child. An infinitude 
belongs even now to that lovely object. The germ of all that is 
great and noble is concealed there. There are elements within 
it of ecstacy or wo beyond all human computation. There is in- 
tellect there and susceptibility of more value to that child than the 
whole natural universe around it. The child knows it not. You 
know it ; and God has committed it to you, that this intellect may 
be developed, expanded, elevated, purified, fitted for happiness 
here, and eternal glory hereafter ; that all those susceptibihties 



23 

may be rightly controlled and made happily subservient to its 
higher nature. God has made it a noble creature ; you are to 
educate it a noble creature. God has stamped upon it his own 
image ; you are to see to it that this image be not efiaced. He 
has handed it to you a spiritual diamond ; you are to burnish it, 
that it shine with brilliant lustre to all eternity. Educate that 
child then. Spare no expense that it may be rightly educated. — 
The high behest of heaven is upon you to do this. Every thing 
permanently great and good and happy, as it respects that child 
in time and beyond time, depends upon its being done. Trust it 
not to unskillful hands, or to vicious influences. If you demand 
wisdom and ability in your minister and physician, demand the 
same in the instructor of your offspring, the pliancy of whose 
natures places them at the mercy of any one, bungler or artist, to 
mould their characters, their minds, their hearts, their wills ; and 
direct them unalterably into the path of good or evil, virtue or vice, 
happiness or misery. Teachers who have committed to them 
your children for so great a portion of the most flexible and form- 
ing period of their lives, will make them what you and your min- 
ister cannot alter. It is the teacher who will make them love or 
hate books ; who will make them active or passive in receiving 
instruction their lives through, who will make them thinkers or 
machines ; who will make them love reading and study better 
than street brawl and vitiating sports and pleasures, or the reverse ; 
who will make their dispositions and manners agreeable or other- 
wise ; who will make ihem, more than any other influence, what 
they are to become as men, as citizens, as neighbors, friends, 
parents and companions. 

Take care then that that teacher understand his responsible 
duties, and have the virtue and the ability to discharge them. 

Parent, fix in your mind theim.age of just-what you wish your 
child to become. The Spartan father wanted his son to become a 
soldier, a strong, athletic fighter ; and he took good care that his 
son was so educated : he was fed and dressed and exercised and 
exposed and punished and in every possible way trained for this 
end ; and he became a soldier. To fight was his glory, his busi- 
ness and his aim. He was as restless as the blood-hound in sight 
of the enemy. The mother, when her son was brought home a 
corpse from the battle-field, anxiously examined his wounds to 
ascertain whether he died fighting or deserting : and when she 
saw the wounds in front, she clapped her hands for joy that she 



24 

had given birth to so much natural courage and strength. Her 
son was all she abked or desired ! He was all he had been educa- 
ted to be. In the parents' view he had answered the end, the 
highest end of his being, and they were satisfied and happy. The 
wild savage desires his child to become adroit with the bow, and 
he trains him carefully that he may be. Dexterously to spear 
the seal upon the floating ice, is the glory of the Greenlander. — 
You have a child to train ; and what do you wish that child to 
be ? I will not ask you whether you desire your son to become 
the most expert wrestler, the mighty hunter, the daring soldier ; 
it is not the place nor the age for such inquiries. Is it not your 
wish that your child, in addition to possessing a well proportioned 
and healthy toned body, should possess a clear, strong, well bal- 
anced mind ? That he should have enlarged views, and capaci- 
ties for high intellectual and moral enjoyment 1 That he should 
grow up with habits of observation, attention and reflection? — 
That he should be happy in himself: finding the richest treasures 
in the writings of great and good men ? To have his soul alive 
to the beauties of God's creation, and his heart imbued with God's 
love ? In a word, do you not wish your child to be educated in 
all respects as a human and an immortal being ? 

Do you reply — "But my son must labor?" I have kept this 
in view. Let him labor ; this is right and honorable and improv- 
ing in itself. Let the tough soil of Nesv-England be his gym- 
nasium ; instead of boxing and the back-hold, let there be dig- 
ging of rocks for his athletic exercise ; but let him not become in 
this way a mere stone pry. 

But to come back. Educate that child for what it is in itself. 
Leave out of view the sphere of life in which it ^is to move. It 
is its mind, not any adventitious circumstances of its existence in 
the world, which I am viewing. Irrespective of office or station ; 
publicity or obscurity ; commanding or obeying ; riches or pov- 
erty, it is that child as an intellectual and moral person that you 
are to see to in this respect. As a person that child is worth the 
same to itself as though the whole world were to stare at it or 
depend upon it ; as intrinsically great and noble whether millions 
are to talk about it, or no one is ever to pronounce its name. A 
mind, not a world, is committed to your care ! It is this which 
you are to train. So help you God, that it may be trained aright ! 



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